The Internal Revenue Service is bringing in 3,500 telephone operators to deal with the flood of calls about economic impact payments from taxpayers waiting for their money from the IRS.
The $2 trillion CARES Act that Congress passed in March included provisions to give individual taxpayers $1,200 each, $2,400 for couples, plus an extra $500 for each of their dependent children to help them get through the economic fallout from the novel coronavirus pandemic. While 140 million of the 150 million payments have been sent oiut, according to figures from the IRS on Monday, numerous problems quickly emerged.
Cathy Lanning serves as Senior Vice President for the Property & Casualty Marketing organization. In this role, she is responsible for the development and execution of integrated marketing plans for personal and commercial insurance products. Together with her team, she builds the brand and the Nationwide business leveraging data-driven direct marketing, partnerships, digital media, social media, cooperative agency marketing and lead generation strategies.
Most recently, Cathy led Strategic Partnerships where she established a large partnership portfolio with a data driven relationship-based selling approach. Together with partners such as alumni associations, cause organizations and sports organizations, Nationwide was able to understand the exact needs of a household and bring the right solutions at the right time to meet their protection needs. Under her leadership, the business unit grew by over 100% in five years.
Cathy joined Nationwide in 2007 as part of the leadership team that launched Nationwide Bank. Throughout her tenure at the company, she has held roles that require innovation, vision and team building. This includes establishing new digital marketing tools for agents, launching new products in the market, and establishing the Marketing Analytics organization. The Marketing Analytics organization delivered the first-generation marketing mix models, comprehensive digital analytics, and forecasting models, all of which helped Nationwide understand marketing effectiveness across channels and identified investment optimization pathways. The insights served the business lines across the company and opened new horizons for efficient growth and retention.
She has broad experience in brand management, analytics, partnership development, direct marketing, distribution marketing, innovation, product development and strategic planning. Prior to joining Nationwide, Cathy was the Brand Manager at The Scotts Company and Product Manager at WorldCom focused on Virtual Private Networks.
Cathy is a proud Ohio State University alumnus, holding a Bachelor of Science in Psychology, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (Marketing) and Masters in Business Administration. She is also a graduate from the Northwestern Kellogg Senior Women in Leadership program.
Outside of work, Cathy is a passionate advocate for education and community learning programs. To live this mission, Cathy serves on the board of The Ohio State University Alumni Association, The Girl Scouts of Ohio’s Heartland and The Wellington School.
Shelley Brazeau Temple serves as President of Nationwide P&C Personal Lines. In this role, Shelley is responsible for all aspects of the Personal Lines Profit and Loss (P&L) segment including product, underwriting, sales and distribution, claims and service.
She most recently served as Nationwide P&C Senior Vice President and Chief Claims and Operations Officer. Prior to that, she served as Senior Vice President of Member Solutions, leading the company’s insurance servicing and billing operations and direct phone sales organization.
Other leadership positions she has held are:
- Regional Vice President of Nationwide’s South Central Operations, responsible for sales, pricing, underwriting and product in a six-state geography, and managing a more than $660 million in sales revenue through exclusive agents and direct sales.
- VP of Strategy and Operational Effectiveness for Customer Service and Direct Sales of Nationwide, developing and executing an innovative contact center strategy.
- VP of Personal Lines Service Operations, responsible for personal lines service and processing center operations.
Shelley began her career at Nationwide as a Claims associate 27 years ago. Her increased responsibilities in leadership positions throughout the years also led her to work with internal audits, product and agency sales.
Shelley holds a bachelor’s degree from Bowling Green State University and the Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriting (CPCU) designation. She has served on several non-profit boards, including Ronald McDonald Children's Charities and the American Lung Association of the Midland States with participation in development, audit/finance and executive committees.
As an accounting professional, these are tough days. But that doesn’t mean your practice can’t grow during this season.
The IRS relied on direct deposit information from taxpayers’ 2018 and 2019 tax returns, when it was available. But many bank accounts were temporary ones set up by tax prep chains for doing refund transfers, and there was no record of the taxpayer’s own bank account. Taxpayers were asked to enter their own direct deposit information online in such cases, and many are still awaiting their checks. The paper checks only recently started being sent out, and in some cases the IRS didn’t have the most up-to-date addresses for taxpayers. In some cases, payments were mistakenly sent to deceased taxpayers and people living abroad.
Much of the IRS workforce has been working remotely as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, although some have been called back to work to deal with the voluminous unopened paper correspondence that has piled up in trailers outside the IRS offices. Now it is starting to bring back employees to answer the phones and answer questions from anxious taxpayers about the status of their payments, although presumably these employees could work remotely.
The IRS warned Monday that telephone assistance and other services will nevertheless remain limited. The agency expects to bring back additional telephone helpers as state and local advisories allow.
In any case, answers for most of the common questions related to the economic impact payments can be found online on IRS.gov. The IRS regularly posts new and updated responses to the most frequently asked questions about economic impact payments here and in the FAQ page for its Get My Payment tool. Taxpayers who want to know about the status of their economic impact payment can check the Get My Payment page regularly. The information is updated as the IRS continues to process the rest of the payments for delivery.
Answers for most questions about the stimulus payments are also available on the automated message for people who call the phone number provided in the letter they receive about their economic impact payments, known as Notice 1444, a letter signed by President Trump informing them their payment has arrived (whether it has or not). Those who need more assistance at the end of the message will have the option of talking to a live representative.
